Evelyne Anderson

Anderson, Evelyne

Evelyne (Louise) Anderson. Soprano, actress, b Winnipeg 24 Dec 1929. She studied voice with her father, W.H. Anderson, and Gladys Whitehead in Winnipeg, and for a time with Jan van der Gucht in England. She was Meg Brockie in Brigadoon, the first full-scale production at Winnipeg's Rainbow Stage. She returned from England for the 1956 season of Rainbow Stage to sing the title roles in Annie Get Your Gun and Kiss Me Kate. In Bristol her portrayal of Laurie in a 1957 production of Oklahoma! led to a London West End engagement as Susie in Bernard Slade's Free as Air (1957), another personal success for the young singer. For family reasons, however, she changed her career ambitions and returned in 1958 to Winnipeg where, over the next 20 years, her firm soprano, clear diction, and serene stagecraft made her virtually the leading lady of Rainbow Stage. Her most popular role has been Anna in The King and I, which she has sung in four separate productions there (1958, 1963, 1969, and 1979), as well as in Memphis, Tenn, in 1964 and in Fredericton for Theatre New Brunswick in 1970. Among other roles with which she has had notable success at Rainbow Stage are Madame Dubonnet in The Boy Friend (1961 and 1975), Marian in The Music Man (1962 and 1968), Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady (1966, repeated in Sydney, NS, in 1968), and Maria Trapp in The Sound of Music (1967). She also sang Agnes in I Do, I Do at the Neptune Theatre in Halifax, NS, in 1970, and Maggie in Johnny Belinda at the Charlottetown Festival in 1974. An accomplished actress, she has appeared in many plays and in 1978 she read the Sitwell poems for the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra's performance of Walton's Façade. In 1991 she remained active as an actress and singer in Manitoba.

See also Jeffrey (William) Anderson (her brother).